Besides the beautiful music, what I enjoyed most about this performance was watching the musicians as they played. I was drawn in by their seemingly coordinated and fluid movements. The group breathed together and moved together, giving the illusion that the sound was originating from one source. I think this was most impactful during the Ades piece. As much as I loved watching the members of the group move as they played, I found myself looking away from the stage in order to allow the music to surround me and forget that there was four different people producing the sound.

I saw the Sankai Juku performance to be one of many contradictions. Among the most interesting was the coordination and connection observed between members during the dance, with no physical contact and rare eye contact between them. This made me wonder about the lives of the dancers outside of the performance, in terms of how much time they spend together in rehearsal or if they spend time together outside of the Butoh dance. Another observed contradiction came to me in a note I made during the performance. I jotted down the phrase “moving sculpture,” which is an inherent contradiction because sculptures cannot move. However, this phrase was how I best described the phenomenon of the dancers themselves. I am curious to hear how others would describe the dancers, and try to explain how they managed such a fluid and connected performance while moving individually.